What a GOP executive committee should not do

Some regular readers of this column might be aware that I am currently a candidate for the State Republican Executive Committee in Tennessee District 4. A few people have asked me what exactly the Executive Committee does, and I've explained that it acts as the Statewide steering andpolicymaking body-essentially the SEC makes the rules whereby a candidate may call themselves Republican, and most importantly the governing bylaws by which county party chairmen, officers, and members of the party in an official sense must abide. The SEC also acts as the State Primary Board, overseeing Tennessee's Statewide Republican Primary. The Democratic Executive Committee functions in similar capacities for that political party.

A good illustration of the role of the State Executive Committee might be to give a prominent example of what a Republican executive committee should not do-this story really happened this week in Ohio:
 

The state Republican Party's central committee endorsed Delaware County Prosecutor Dave Yost for state auditor last night, and the move outraged members of the conservative Tea Party movement.

They accused Republican leaders of pressuring Yost to abandon his bid for attorney general and run for auditor.

Several protesters chanted and waved signs outside party headquarters Downtown as GOP Chairman Kevin DeWine told the meeting of the 66-member committee inside that Yost is best poised to win the auditor's race.

The move sets up a primary battle between Yost and state Rep. Seth Morgan, R-Huber Heights, both of whom jumped into the GOP race after incumbent Mary Taylor dropped her re-election bid two weeks ago to become John Kasich's running mate in the gubernatorial race.

The endorsement also probably clears the way for Mike DeWine, Kevin DeWine's cousin, to avoid a Republican primary in the attorney general's race.

Central committee members said they were bombarded with e-mails and phone calls from people opposed to what they perceived to be a backroom deal. The committee's voice vote to endorse Yost was nearly unanimous.

Kevin DeWine told committee members that there was no deal, just polling that showed Yost with a "double-digit" lead over the likely Democratic nominee, David Pepper, a Hamilton County commissioner.

Some background: In Ohio's Republican organization, the body which is comparable to Tennessee's State Executive Committee is called the State Central Committee, and like the Tennessee SEC, the Ohio Central Committee has 66 seats-one man and one woman elected for each State Senate District.Like Tennessee's Republican Committee, these Central Committee men and women are pledged to support the Republican nominee-or at least not to publicly oppose that nominee-for the various offices which people might run for under the Republican banner. Traditionally, members of these kinds of bodies do not make primary endorsements so their support of the eventual nominee can never be viewed as tainted one way or the other.

Apparently, Ohio Central Committee bylaws must allow that body to endorse candidates in primaries as a matter of regular practice. Whether the rules allow for this or not, it is a thoroughly shameful practice because it undermines the GOP's ability to command the loyalty of its voter base. Perhaps even more disgusting is that in this particular case, the move by the committee to encourage one candidate to drop his campaign for one office and instead run for another benefited the cousin of the State party Chairman (see DeWine family corruption).

Some might say that the uproar in this case exists only because people who support the Tea Party movement have made a public issue of what they see as a backroom deal by the Republican Party in Columbus. However, any real Republican, regardless of their opinion of the Tea Party movement, should find this kind of behavior by a GOP State organization to be sickening to the point of throwing up. Executive committees exist in part to protect the GOP from the appearance of the kind of impropriety which apparently happened in this case.